School - Then and Now

I have very many fond memories of school and childhood. My school made me everything I am today. I went to a complicated all girls school. It was co-ed till 5th grade. The boys then transferred to the boy's school across the street and then avoided all eye contact with us after that weird transition. People took all modes of transportation to school. People drawn rickshaws, motorized rickshaws, auto rickshaws, vans, public buses and so on. Parent drop off was a rarity, not because our mothers worked, but because parent drop off was not a thing and the traffic that people had to beat to drive miles to get their kids to school that early in the morning was just not worth it. I was one of those kids that lived far away and had my grandpa drop me off  on the way to work every morning. My mom then arranged for a nanny of sorts to pick me up in the afternoon and bring home by public transport. So… school drop off line… Psssh… There is a yellow bus that transports my kids from home to school for free? You can imagine the shock and gratitude!

Getting to school on time was a big deal. The sprawling piece of land in the middle of the city had large iron gates that shut right on time. Once they shut, they remained shut. There was no getting past them, one way or another. Imagine my emotions when I realized that my kids could escape from the school playground if they were crafty.

There isn't a child that grew up in India in the 90's that wouldn't relate to the morning assembly. Rows and columns of kids forming an orderly line based on their height and arguing over who had sprouted an inch overnight. The neatly plaited, ribbon tied hair was always a curly girl's nightmare. You could never look presentable, no matter how hard you tried. The singing of some version of a song praising God followed by the National Anthem and then the dreaded hygiene check - were your shoes polished, were you wearing canvas shoes and the right uniform on PE days, were your nails cut, your uniform pressed and any other random check in between by the prefects - as though we were prisoners off to our cells. The highlight of the assembly was the number of fainting girls, based on how long the person responsible for delivering the news and uplifting speech for the day took!

Another thing that would never fly anywhere today was getting smacked with a steel ruler for being noisy, not finishing your homework, for talking in class, the misdeeds plenty, the solution always the same. While I loved my teachers and am grateful for the discipline and life lessons they instilled in us, I am also grateful for the love and patience my kids' teachers give them.

As I wonder at how well the schools rallied around a pandemic and education was uniquely business as usual, I remember the first time we ever touched a computer at 10 years old. I am a computer professional and did not own a computer till I was 19, not because my parents couldn't afford it, but merely because they didn't want to "spoil" me! In this age of plenty, where my kids order stuff on Alexa, I am eternally grateful for my dad's late night runs right after work for art supplies before the store closed at 8. As a parent, I am grateful for Amazon and the Target that is always stocked and right by my home and the school supply list at the beginning of the year and the PTA that buys those supplies for you at a nominal cost.

Do our kids have it easier than us? Most definitely. Do we as parents have it easier than ours? Absolutely!

The childhood of our children and us

I am blessed with two wonderful children. Becoming a parent is an eye opening experience in many ways. If you are one of those who are trying to raise a family in a country away from the one you grew up in, away from your natural support system and trying to make sure your children are integrated into the society they are growing up in, you are presented with a new set of challenges and opportunities. The challenges come from not being aware of certain customs, social rules, lunches and so on. The opportunities are what have excited me. It is almost like having a second shot at childhood. They are also largely dependent on the interests of your kids. 

Musical instruments - if your kids are interested, then learn an instrument with them; board games - I had no idea how much I loved those; biking - I got myself a bike the moment both of them could ride theirs and we can ride around as a family now; books - the books my children expose me to, being an avid reader myself, I wonder how I never read or heard of these books; music - you are never too old to grow your tastes; sports - I have learned the intricacies of new sports that I never cared about in my adult life; dinosaurs, cars and random tidbits of information that only a young and curious mind can notice, gather and remember - the list is endless.

While I wonder at my kids and the information and activities they have at their disposal,  I look back at my childhood and how different it was from theirs. One isn't better or worse than the other, but it is impossible not to compare and contrast. While I have been in a writer's funk, I figured a series about our childhood and the things that drove and motivated us would impassion me enough to get out of this funk.

My Mom Tribe

Joyous as parenting may be, it comes with its own set of "Oh my God! What did I get myself into!" moments. Being a mother to a child in this day and age poses its own set of unique challenges. Women are forced to take on more than they ever did in the years past. You are expected to step it up if you are stay at home mom and you are expected to be a super mom who has it all together if you are a working mom. You cannot win either way!

Some of us are blessed with wonderful spouses who can share the burden and make life slightly less stressful for us. Some spouses parent together and some are together because they parent. Either way, the person who was your spouse is your co-parent. No fun there! In most working families, each of us face our own challenges with staying afloat and keeping pace with everything around us.

Between ppd, mom guilt, work guilt and everything else that stands in the way of you enjoying yourself, there is one thing that keeps most of us afloat. I call it my 'Mom Tribe'. Your mom tribe does not have to consist of only moms. It's those precious friends, who get you, see you for what you are, mom or not. They don't judge you for your parenting decisions. Mindless shopping to girl talk to stepping up when you truly need help without you asking for it. To laugh together and to push you forward through your self doubt! They lunch with you after you rescheduled a million times and thinking nothing of it! They rally with you and make your life what it should be, NORMAL!

I thank my MOM TRIBE for getting me through my toughest days and celebrating the happy ones with me! You keep me sane and are a huge piece of my mom life!

My little bundle of joy

There are few moments in life which are so overwhelming that you want to hold on to them for as long as possible, make it your little secret, but at the same time tell the world about it. Giving birth to a baby is one of those moments. Starting from your 37th week when you already start worrying you are going to miss carrying that little being inside you once he is born to crying at the sound of his first cry, I have never felt so many emotions all at the same time.
When my little one was brought to me, the first thing I remember thinking before passing out was how alert and calm and composed he was for a newborn just introduced to the world and how very alien like he looked. I have always considered myself restrained as far as emotions go, and when people described the joy of holding their baby in their hands, I would always take it with a pinch of salt. Reality check for me. For the first week, whenever that little wailing ball was brought to me from the nursery, I would immediately want to make things alright for him; whenever I looked upon his serene sleeping face, I would want to keep the world that way for him.
When a child is born, there is a lot of talk about parents showering him with love and affection, but the truth is, you are constantly vying for the little one's affection and love; for a tiny smile; for him to look at you; for him to show that little spark of recognition when he looks at you; for him to comforted when he is in your arms; for him to trust you; for him to gaze lovingly into your eyes and silently tell you your baby gibberish means the world to him.
When they say a baby can change your life, what they actually mean is a baby can change who you are.. You become more patient, become the least fussy person in the whole world, love the smell of sour milk and spit up and rearrange every priority you might have ever had before he arrived. The important thing to remember is, you don't bring up a baby the right or the wrong way, like in any relationship, you both grow together, and unlike any other relationship you become an adult in this one. Bringing up a baby is just that - bundles of joy weighed with tons of responsibility.

On Travels and Journeys..

As a frequent traveler myself, I have spent many an hour in airports observing and interacting with other travelers. As a child, trains were my primary means of travel and nowhere as inhibitive or scary as airline travel is these days. The only people we met on those trains were usually traveling for pleasure or to meet their families and as far as I remember, traveling and planning for travel was a big deal in those days. It still is for a lot of people. However, new lifestyle and opportunities have redefined how, when and why people travel these days.
The first kind of traveler is the age-old "taking a vacation once in a year or two travelling with family and looking hassled at the beginning of the vacation" traveler. This person will probably look a lot more relaxed at the end of the vacation than when he started out. This traveler wants everything to be perfect on the vacation because he planned for it for so long. He has the heaviest baggage and chances are will run into problems every step of the check-in process in the airport. To him, its like the cosmos are conspiring against his well planned vacation to ruin it for him.
The second kind of traveler is that traveling salesperson or consultant or the like for whom a missed fight can be disastrous, but they fly so often and pack so light that they are unfrassled. This is the most unfriendly traveler because he/she is trying to make as much use of any spare moment they have. Headphones plugged in and moving around with a mi-fi they are trying to get as much work done on the plane or an airport as possible. He/she might as well be in his/her office making the mos important  presentation of their lives; they are completely immune to their surroundings.
The next kind of traveler is the weekend traveler, probably working in a different city from where his home is. Could be a student, or a hard working man/woman trying to get back with tons of dirty laundry to home or children. Surprisingly they are also quite relaxed during travel even though anxious to go home and in spite of the fact that they are lugging  a week's worth of dirty laundry with them :) Maybe the thought that they will be home soon keeps this traveler sane.
Another kind of traveler is the business traveler, possibly the head of some leading organization. Arrives just in time to board a flight, has been all over the world, but has never seen too many places of beauty, always travels first class and has access to all those classy waiting rooms in airports, but probably never used them, because s(he) arrives just in time for the flight; skips those delicious first class meals, because they pass out as soon as they board the flight because they have traveled 5 time zones in the past 5 days. This is the traveler who can be funny and witty and very informative, if they were ever awake for you to strike up a conversation with.
The last category is the one that I like to put myself in. The kind that travels for pleasure and leisure, so much so that every moment of leisure is spent traveling. This kind misses flights every so often, but is laid back about it, can pack a week's worth of clothes in a duffel bag, whiz through security screens and eventually get good at not losing anything while traveling after having misplaced a few expensive items in the process. This kind is capable of sleeping in the airport for 24 hours or even in a car at -32F is necessary. All they basically want to be able to do is go from spot A to B and back to A in time for work. Mind you, these travelers can be further categorized as adventurers, weekend travelers, world travelers, etc., but for the purposes of air travel, I can safely put them under one category.
I cannot say why I felt the need to list out the different kinds of travelers I meet, except that I felt a compelling need to note down my observations from my travels. However, there is a moral to the story - travel like life, is a journey - and different people like different travelers approach it differently. Some people just want to get from point A to B, to some getting to point B is what is important and they will tolerate anything for that, to some getting to point B is as important as how they do- it all has to be perfect, to some its all a haze, they are working so hard at so many things that they forget to look where they are going or enjoy the process of getting there and finally there are those people who enjoy the journey as much as the destination. Of course, I will not comment on what the best approach to travel or life is, because like travel, life puts us in a certain place and time and we all play it as we see fit! All we can wish for is for the journey to be pleasant.

THE little GREASE STAIN

Grease on a wall. Oppressive dark furniture in a semi-lit room. Endless abyss of idle time. An active mind. Madness. That's how the story began and ended. She was a neat freak and there was this annoying little greasy stain on the otherwise spotless wall. She spotted it for the first time, when she was watching tv one afternoon in that depressing little living room of hers, with its oppressive dark colored furniture. The blinds were drawn and the only light was from the TV screen.

She hated the mid-day television soaps, but still could not resist watching them. Why? Because there was nothing else to do. "Well, its upto you how you use your time..", her friends and family would tell her.... The grease stain drew her attention again.. Did she imagine it, it seemed to have spread a little, increased in size by an inch. To be fair, she had been looking for work and catching up on reading for the first 6 months. But then, reading is fun, only when you steal time away from other things to do it, not when its the only thing you have been doing for 6 months. So, she tried writing. The grease stain again... Why would it not come off? She made a mental note to try that new stain remover she had seen on the commercial. She picked up her laptop to read reviews on the new stain remover.

About the writing, yeah, she wrote about 2-3 blogs and ran out of things to say. She was brimming with this capacity to say things beautifully, but then, what could she write about? Almost anything she said seemed to be stolen from those damned television programs or the books she read. Hmmm... She couldn't wait to try the new stain remover...

Next day, same time, same show, the stain remover had been ineffective. The grease stain had spread more. Maybe she should do what mom always does to get rid of stain on the wall. Why had she not tried that? Ever since the writing attempt had failed, she had pretty much given up trying, life was a routine, so much so she could get all her house chores done at an amazing speed. She even knew the precise second when the postman would walk up the steps and drop off the mail. Stain! Stain! Go Away... The new stain remover had been a bad idea...

Well, mom's method had not been effective either. How about repainting the wall eh? Hmmm, that will keep me occupied for a couple of days.. Or maybe just painting over the stain?

Hmmm.... that looks neat... Damn! I missed a spot. A big spot in fact! Mission: Repaint tomorrow...

Mission Fail: One more spot...

And so the stain engulfed her... There remained an empty semi-lit room with TV on low volume and oppressive dark furniture as she mutated into an obsessive being with 8 large tentacles, and sprawled up the wall, chasing and examining the ever moving and resilient grease stain....

Uncensored Ramblings

Reading a book by an author that I used to love as a child awakened something in me. Something so strong, that I had to put the book down and start blogging(rambling) immediately. A feeling that I am sure is shared by many, but so difficult to put down in words. A sense of pride, belonging, nostalgia, good memories, freedom, happiness and a mixture of all the good things in life. It is something that you miss; something that you want to talk about; something that makes you check if your best friend of 19 years is still online...

A something that is definitely hard to describe.. It reminds me of the soft chuckles at the back of my parent's car (reading a PG Wodehouse), the times that I sat huddled on a couch burning the midnight oil during the holidays, the voracious reading sprees(4-5 books in a week), the unending debate about who the best character in Gone With the Wind is, repeating word for word the famous conversation between Yossarin and Doc Daneeka in Catch-22, the time I read Atlas Shrugged around the same time my friend was and discussing the book every morning, lunch and coffee break, the 2 thick volumes of Leo Tolstoy mum bought me when I set out into the big bad world for the first time ;), lying alongside my grandfather as a kid, each lost in his/her own Hitchcock :), the several trips to the library with my mom endlessly arguing as to whose turn it was to pick a book of her choice...

Book are fun, books are your best friends as someone rightly said, but books to me are also treasured memories... of wonderful times I spent with people I value and love.

P.S: The weird thing is a roaring Bertie and Jeeves combo inspired me to ramble on so....